


A la Recherché du temps perdu  [In Search of Lost Time]

by noydb666 (Elynittria)



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-13
Updated: 2005-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elynittria/pseuds/noydb666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lister and Rimmer have difficulties dealing with their memories of the multiple timelines. Episode tag for "Timeslides."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A la Recherché du temps perdu  [In Search of Lost Time]

Lister blinked as the fuzziness in front of his eyes resolved itself into a room that looked like some kind of lab. His mind felt as blank as the white walls surrounding him. His glance took in Kryten and Cat, who stood beside him, but there was no real interest or comprehension in his eyes. And the man in green who was rambling on and on was simply an annoyance to him, like a fly buzzing in his ear.

After asking the room in general what had just happened and what the man with the enormous nostrils was blathering on about and getting only shrugs for answers, Lister shook his head and walked out of the photo lab, an annoyed expression on his face. Kryten and the Cat followed him. Like Lister, they seemed to be somewhat shell-shocked, not responding normally to the reality that surrounded them.

Rimmer was so sure that he would be disappearing soon that he didn't really care that they had walked out on him. After all, that was a common occurrence—people tended to disappear if he was around. This time, however, _he_ would be the one doing the leaving. But nothing was happening. He was still on board _Red Dwarf,_ and he wasn't a millionaire. _Smeg! Nothing ever goes right for me!_

He sat down and began to complain about that recurring fact of his life to Holly, who was the only one still hanging around. She didn't appear to be listening, however.

"Hang on a mo', something _is_ different," she suddenly said. "Don't ask me why, but somehow you're no longer a hologram. You're alive!"

"What?" _She must be pulling my leg. There's no way that something this fantastic could ever happen to me._ But even as he was telling himself it couldn't be true, he noticed that he could actually feel the counter on which he was leaning. He started touching the walls and everything within reach to confirm that he really was alive—that he really could touch again. The final test was checking his forehead. Yes, the detested 'H' was no longer there.

"I'm alive! I'm alive!" he shouted in sheer joy. He ran over to the bench and took a huge bite out of the banana and crisps sandwich. He could taste, too! It was real. He was no longer a ghost made out of light. He was alive! He wanted to shout the news from the highest rooftops as an outlet for his wild joy—but, of course, there were no rooftops of any type around. He settled on finding Lister in order to share his news with someone who might actually care that he was alive again.

He ran down the corridor after his crewmates, yelling the good news to them (along with an order to Kryten to break out Rachel and the puncture repair kit). Even the mundane crates that lined the corridors of the cargo deck through which he was passing held a fascination for him—he could touch them at long last! The sensation of the roughness of the wood was as precious and wonderful to him as the feel of silk.

Lister and the others weren't that far ahead. He shouted out his news once again, intoxicated with the exhilaration of being human again. "I'm alive! Don't you think it's incredible?" Surprisingly, they didn't turn around. _Maybe they didn't hear me,_ he thought. _Well, so what? I'm so happy I feel like hugging Lister—hell, I feel like hugging_ all _of them! I don't care whether they hate me or not._

"I! Am! Alive!" Rimmer yelled triumphantly at full volume, punctuating his shout by pounding his fists down on two crates on either side of him in the corridor. Unfortunately, the impact set off some very old and unstable explosives, which immediately killed him. Rimmer didn't have a chance to think of anything this time around—not even gazpacho soup. His body was instantaneously torn to bits and flung in all directions. Arnold J. Rimmer most definitely did not exist in this universe anymore.

* * *

After departing the photo lab, Lister walked like a zombie through the adjacent cargo deck. His mind was having a hard time figuring out what had happened and who he was. _I'm a billionaire. Nah, I'm just a third technician on a ratty old mining ship. But wait—didn't I invent the Tension Sheet? How could I have ended up as a bum on a battered old ship? And where's Sabrina? Or was her name Kristine? And why do I keep thinking I need to find someone named Rimmer?_

He heard some shouting behind him, but he was lost in his thoughts, trying to cope with flashes of different sets of memories. _They can't_ all _be real! Why can't I figure out what's real and what's a dream? Maybe I should ask Holly. She'll know who I am—I hope. Sometimes I doubt if she knows who_ she_ is._

A loud explosion behind him briefly disturbed his preoccupation. He turned around sluggishly, but there didn't seem to be anything behind him. Of course, in his current mental state, there probably could have been a thirty-foot-tall naked woman there and he wouldn't have noticed or cared. Cat and Kryten were experiencing similar reactions. The problem of trying to integrate conflicting timelines and realities sapped both mental and emotional resources, leaving room for nothing more than lower-level brain functioning and apathy regarding the current reality.

"What was he saying?" Cat asked in an off-hand manner to no one in particular.

The others shrugged, not knowing and not caring. All three continued on to their separate quarters to recuperate and try to understand why their memories were so bizarre.

* * *

Lister entered his quarters, removed his jacket, and sank down listlessly onto one of the chairs. _This isn't me home,_ he thought, looking around. _Where's all the wood and gold an' stuff?_

_Where's Rimmer?_ another part of his brain asked.

_What? Who the smeg is Rimmer?_

"Maybe I bumped me head," he said out loud. He stood up and started to remove his hat in order to look for the tell-tale bump, but stopped when his fingers encountered some strange-feeling material and something soft and squishy on top of his hat. Holding his breath and almost afraid to look, he turned around to see himself in the mirror. There was definitely something disgusting on his hat—it looked like green bri-nylon dipped in blood, and bits of...

He froze, eyes widening, then frantically knocked the hat off his head with a flailing arm as he rushed into the bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet before losing everything in his stomach. Lister grasped the sides of the bowl with shaking fingers and kept on heaving even after there was nothing left to regurgitate. Finally, he loosened his hold on the loo and let himself slump to the floor.

_Those were bits of a dead body on me hat. When did they get there? Who is—or_ was—_ it?_

_It's probably Rimmer, you idiot! Your best mate died and you didn't even notice?!_

_Rimmer's_ not _me best mate—I can't stand him!_

The contradictory reactions kept tumbling around in his aching head. _Am I goin' crazy?_ Lister tried to breathe deeply and get his nerves under control. When he felt a little less off kilter, he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled into the shower, heedless of the fact that he was fully clothed. He felt an urgent need to clean himself off, just in case there were any... _No. Don't think about it. Just shower._

While he was frantically scrubbing at his hair and clothes in an obsessive effort to remove every last bit of blood, his mind was suddenly inundated with a flood of memories. The memories were coherent and true—he _knew_ he had experienced all of them—but they contradicted one another. Lister concentrated all his attention on the memories, needing to pin them down and bring them into sharper focus.

One set insisted that he was marooned in space three million years away from the solar system, with only an annoying hologram, a being evolved from a cat, and a service mechanoid as company.

Another set told him that he should be on Earth in his mansion, with Sabrina by his side and servants hovering nearby to cater to his every whim.

Still another set, which had been very fuzzy in his mind up till now, claimed that he was indeed marooned on the mining ship _Red Dwarf_ but wasn't the only human left alive. His roommate, Rimmer, had also been in stasis when the accident occurred. He should be around here somewhere, and together they could forget all this insanity by indulging in some hot and heavy sex.

Lister turned off the water and stood stock still in the shower. _Me an' Rimmer are lovers?_

_Of course we are! Unfortunately, it's pretty one-sided—I'm in love with him, but I think for him the sex is still just a way to relieve frustration, like it was when we started. Bein' with me is just better than jerking off alone._

_Now I remember somebody called 'Rimmer.' He was that nutter who showed up in me dining room one day going on and on about how we were friends._

Lister shook his head violently—he had to stop these internal conversations somehow. He became aware that his clothes were growing colder and were clinging to him unpleasantly. The minor physical discomfort allowed him to divert his mind to the task of getting dry and dressed. He firmly kept himself from thinking about anything other than what he was doing at the moment. When he was done, then he would turn his brain back on.

* * *

The cargo deck seemed vast and eerie to Lister as he passed through it, retracing his steps in order to find if the body that had mysteriously rained on him at some point earlier in the day was in fact on board _Red Dwarf._ He fervently hoped it wasn't.

As he searched, he swung his torch around in all directions, supplementing the dim overhead lighting. The beam had already passed over some debris on the floor before Lister reacted to the sight and retrained the torch on it. He drew closer, then crouched down to examine the debris. A large fragment of green bri-nylon cloth, bloodied and burnt, lay crumpled on the floor. There seemed to be something beneath it, so Lister tentatively picked up an end of the cloth and lifted it up. He screamed in terror and dropped the torch, scuttling away from the object as best he could. A severed hand, minus some of its long fingers, was lying palm down on the floor. On the stump of wrist that remained was a watch with a large greenish face, now cracked and bent.

* * *

"Hol!" Lister called as he entered his quarters and sank down onto Rimmer's bunk, still reeling from his discovery of indisputable evidence that Rimmer had recently been alive.

"What's up, Dave?"

"That's what I was goin' to ask _you,_" he replied. "What happened to Rimmer? And why are too many memories 'aving a rumble in me brain?"

"Arnold went back in time to try to be the one to invent the Tension Sheet and become rich, but it didn't work. However, he changed something—I'm not sure what—so that when he returned, he was alive. You and Kryten and Cat returned because a timeline similar to the original one had been restored. Unfortunately, Arnold accidentally blew himself up on one of the cargo decks, so now he's dead again."

"Yeah, I noticed," Lister muttered.

"As for your brain, I have a theory: You have multiple memories because the current timeline hasn't stabilized yet—probably because you and Arnold made so many changes in so short a time. I told you you shouldn't mess around with time."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Lister shrugged off the computer's moralizing. "When's it gonna' stabilize?"

"The timeline, or your brain?"

"Both."

"Well, I'd say the timeline should be sorted soon, probably within a day. Dunno about your brain—that may be pretty hopeless." Holly looked slightly perturbed.

"Are you sayin' I'm goin' to be walkin' around forever with three separate timelines competin' to be number one in me head?" Lister was horrified at the prospect. It seemed a sure route to insanity.

"Oh, so _that's _what you're worried about!" Holly said, cheering up. "No, that'll probably go away as soon as the timeline stabilizes. I thought you meant—"

"Never mind that," Lister cut her off. "I've got me answer." _Now I just have to figure out what to do about it._

* * *

A few hours later, Lister stood alone in the hologram projection suite, preparing to switch on Rimmer's hologram. He wondered what memories Rimmer would have, and whether he'd be able to cope if he ended up with the same whirlwind going on in his mind as Lister was experiencing.

He threw the switch and watched as Rimmer's image formed off to one side of him. He looked the same so far. Then Holly downloaded Rimmer's memories into the hologram. A series of expressions flashed across Rimmer's face—pain, horror, joy, depression—until his countenance finally settled into a rather blank, vaguely confused look. Rimmer reached up to his forehead and felt the 'H' that branded him as a hologram. He seemed to wince slightly as he touched it, then he half-heartedly swung his hand toward the console near which he was standing. He didn't seem at all surprised when it passed right through the solid metal.

"Er," Lister began, unsure of how to approach Rimmer.

"Lister," Rimmer said, looking over at him. "I didn't see you there." His face had instantly frozen into an emotionless mask, revealing nothing, but his right leg was twitching like it wanted to run away as soon as possible.

"So you remember me?"

"Of course I do, you goit!" sniffed Rimmer with disdain. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do with my time than have idiotic conversations with you." He whirled around and hastened out of the room as fast as dignity would allow.

* * *

Rimmer practically ran to the Observation Dome. Once there, he sank onto the floor and leaned against the bulkhead, his legs sprawled out in front of him. His mind felt like a kaleidoscope that had recently been twisted, all the fragments moving from their old pattern to form a new one. But in his case the pieces weren't coalescing properly.

He remembered being alive again for all too brief a time, but he also remembered never having been a hologram before. Part of his mind grudgingly accepted his hologramatic status, while another part wanted to gibber and scream because he was suddenly dead and didn't have a real body. _I suppose this is a side effect of playing with time,_ he thought. _Serves me right for trying to drag Lister back here when he was happy where he was._ He deliberately turned his thoughts away from the sense of panic he had felt when Lister had disappeared and he had been faced with the prospect of eternity without him.

More memories of being alive after emerging from stasis on board _Red Dwarf_ were beginning to surface in his mind. He zeroed in on them, curious about what that timeline had been like. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by images and emotions. He gasped and placed his hands around his head as if he could stop the torrent by physically holding it back. It was too late, however—he was drowning in a past that he knew he had never actually experienced.

Rimmer drew his knees up close to his chest in an instinctual protective gesture. He winced as strong emotions bubbled up within him: feelings of desire, yearning, and love. They were all shadowed by a sense of despair, though: Lister would never see him as more than a sexual toy, so his own love for Lister was doomed to remain forever unspoken and unrequited.

_No!_ Rimmer sharply admonished himself. _I don't_ want _to feel these things! They're not real. I'm_ not _in love with Lister! He's an idiot who's totally annoying, selfish, and uncaring. I'd be a fool to feel anything for someone who doesn't even want me around—and I'm no fool. Maybe a total loser, but not a fool._

Gradually, the new memories faded a bit, losing their frightening intensity as they became part of the background roar going on in Rimmer's mind. He sighed, resting his head on his crossed arms. _That other Rimmer was luckier than me..._ The stray thought bounced around in his head, uninvited and definitely unwelcome.

* * *

Lister, meanwhile, had returned to his quarters. He had thought about following Rimmer, but finally decided that his roommate might need some time alone to come to grips with any multiple memories he might have.

He stretched out on his bunk and stared at the ceiling, arms behind his head. His mind kept returning to the idea of him and Rimmer having sex together in that other timeline. He had to admit that having a live, warm human being around to touch and be touched by would be a great thing. Warm hands on his cock, a friendly body to curl up next to and drift off to sleep holding... It seemed like eons since he'd experienced those things. But Rimmer being the warm body? Well, he supposed it made sense—in that timeline, at least. Rimmer had been the only other living human. But that didn't explain the deeper emotions regarding Rimmer that he had discovered in that particular set of memories.

Lister closed his eyes and began probing his memories. He had to know what had happened between them in that lost timeline—then maybe he could figure out what to do next in this one....

_He came up behind Rimmer in the Observation Dome and put his hand on his roommate's shoulder to let him know he was there. Rimmer nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around, dislodging Lister's hand, and hissed an accusatory question: "Did you follow me here just so you could laugh at me some more?"_

"Rimmer, I—" began Lister.

"Because I'm not going to stand here and let you have that pleasure. Now move your oversized butt so I can leave." Rimmer's voice was furious, and Lister noticed that his eyes were peculiarly bright.

The whole situation was totally smegged up. It had started back in their quarters. He had been feeling depressed and lonely and had decided to take his mind off his troubles by jacking off. That only seemed to make things worse, though. He'd done it by himself too often, it seemed, and his cock refused to cooperate. Thinking about Kristine Kochanski was no longer working—he guessed it was because he was finally beginning to accept that she was truly gone and to realize that their brief affair hadn't amounted to much. He had simply been the rebound fling between more serious boyfriends. She had never opened her heart or soul to him, nor cared to find out anything about him other than on the physical level. What he really wanted was a lover who was also a best friend—someone he could trust totally. Someone like Rimmer, perhaps?

Rimmer was stuck here just like him, and their twin solitudes had caused them to become closer out of necessity. You can't spend 24 hours a day with someone and not get to know them better. And not only was Rimmer here—he was real. Not a fading memory. Not an inflatable sex toy like Rachel. Lister imagined Rimmer's long, delicate fingers curled around his cock, which immediately made him hard again. But then Lister began to think about all the walls still surrounding Rimmer. He'd never let Lister get too close, physically or emotionally. At least not yet. Perhaps in time... Lister sighed, his hand falling away from his cock.

"What's the matter, Listy? Your right hand too tired from all the workouts it gets?" Rimmer's voice was sarcastic and totally unexpected. Lister jumped guiltily. He hadn't heard Rimmer entering the room.

"You know, there's always Rachel if you're bored with your hand," Rimmer continued.

"I'm bored with Rachel, too," Lister sighed. "She's not real—it's just not the same."

There was a brief silence. Finally, Rimmer spoke up in a strained voice, an unreadable expression on his face: "Well, maybe I could help you out then—after all, I'm _real. At the very least, it would be a different hand doing the work."_

Lister couldn't believe what he was hearing. It fitted in so well with his own recent fantasy that he couldn't help but laugh—mostly out of nerves, but also out of delight that the fantasy was apparently about to come true.

But Rimmer must have misinterpreted the laughter because he had blushed bright red and bolted from the room.

Lister couldn't leave things like that, so he had gone after Rimmer, leading to their confrontation in the Observation Dome.

"Rimmer, look, I'm sorry about laughing. But I wasn't laughing at _you—I was just kind of nervous, ya know? I didn't know what to say, so I laughed instead."_

Rimmer was looking at him skeptically. Lister hurried on with his explanation: "I—well, I've kind of been thinking about what you suggested back there.... I'd like to try it—unless you're too mad at me, or think I'm a smeghead."

"Of course I think you're a smeghead," Rimmer replied haughtily, "but let's try it anyway." His tone was difficult for Lister to interpret: Was he still mad? Did he just want to help Lister out or was there more to it? How did Rimmer really feel about him?

Lister pushed all doubts and questions away—there were more important things to do at the moment. He leaned forward and kissed Rimmer.

Lister opened his eyes. That kiss had been wonderful and had triggered their physical relationship. But they had never gotten around to exploring what the relationship meant to each of them. They had had fantastic sex, but no words of love had passed between them.

He found himself wishing that he could talk to Rimmer and find out if he remembered having sex together in that timeline and, if so, what his take was on that relationship—and on their current one. But there didn't seem any good way to get such a conversation started. He couldn't just walk up to Rimmer and say, 'Hey, how'd you feel about me when we were fucking each other in the other timeline?' The hologram was likely to either run away or deny knowing what Lister was talking about. And he definitely couldn't tell Rimmer that he had loved him in that reality—or could he? Would Rimmer want to know that, or would it make him feel worse about their current reality? After all, they could no longer touch each other. And what if Rimmer told him that it had never meant anything to him at all, as he'd often suspected? Could he deal with that?

Holly had said the memories of the other timelines would fade and probably disappear within a day. If Lister didn't talk to Rimmer about them soon, the matter would be taken out of his hands. In one way, that would be good: He and Rimmer could go on as they had been before deciding to mess with time, and everything would be comfortable and normal again. _And lonely,_ his mind pointed out. If he talked to Rimmer, the conversation itself would be a way of acknowledging that other timeline and preserving those memories to some extent. It might even bring him and Rimmer a little closer. However, it also ran the risk of creating barriers between the two of them that would make Lister's current loneliness worse.

Lister sighed and jumped down from his bunk. He wasn't sure what he was going to say to Rimmer, but he knew he had to go find him. It had been a while since the hologram had been reactivated, and he hadn't returned yet. _God only knows what he must be going through,_ Lister mused.

Lister quietly climbed the stairs to the Observation Dome and peeked through the doorway. _Déjà vu all over again, _he thought to himself as he saw Rimmer looking out at the stars, his arms crossed tightly around his chest, his back to Lister. But this time around I can't tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Rimmer, man—you all right?" Lister asked as he entered the dome.

Rimmer didn't acknowledge his presence. Instead, he remained silent, a lifelike statue staring out into the infinite emptiness of space.

"Rimmer?" Lister began again, moving to stand next to Rimmer and join him in gazing at the stars. "I've been remembering a lot of things about...other timelines." He hesitated, then decided to keep on going despite the continued lack of response from Rimmer. "It's kind of doin' a number on me brain—real _Twilight Zone_ stuff. How 'bout you? Do you remember...er...anything about the other timelines we created?"

"No," replied Rimmer in a hollow voice. "I don't." Unseen by Lister, a muscle jumped in Rimmer's jawline as he clenched his mouth firmly shut, willing himself not to say anything else. He didn't enjoy lying to Lister, but couldn't bear to discuss their strange shared past in another timeline. If he ignored it, maybe the memories would just go away and stop tormenting him with the knowledge that in another reality he had been able to hold Lister, to make love to him, to kiss him... But Lister was lost to him now—if, indeed, he had ever really had a deep connection with him in that reality.

"Really?" Lister persisted. "I would've thought you'd have the same mixed-up memories as me. Hol said it's 'cause this timeline hasn't stabilized yet."

"I only remember one timeline, Lister. I guess I'm different because I'm not really human," Rimmer replied, shrugging his shoulders in simulated disinterest.

Lister examined Rimmer closely out of the corners of his eyes, but he couldn't tell whether the hologram was lying or not. He wished he could throw caution to the wind and simply kiss Rimmer, like he had in his memories—surely that would resolve the issue one way or another. But kissing was no longer a possibility in this reality. "Well, if any memories come back and you wanna talk about 'em, I'll be in our quarters," Lister finally said. He reluctantly turned to leave.

Rimmer remained where he was, locked in silence, denial, and loneliness.

After returning to his bunk and stretching out, Lister scribbled as rapidly as possible in his diary, determined not to lose his memories of that other timeline. This seemed to be the only way available now that talking to Rimmer had failed. Sleep gradually overpowered him, however, and the pen slipped out of his hand.

* * *

Lister woke up slowly the next morning, as was usual for him. As he stretched and gathered himself for getting out of bed, he heard something fall from his bunk to the floor. Curious, he jumped down to recover the item. It was only his diary. _Oh, right, I remember writin' something last night before fallin' asleep._

He leafed through the diary's pages until he came to the previous night's entry. The writing was more atrocious than usual and sprawled all over the page, making it difficult to read. Lister persevered, however, and managed to decipher what was there. But it didn't make any sense—it was absolute gibberish. _Why the smeg would I be writin' about another timeline? We didn't manage to change_ anything _with all that playin' around with Kryten's photo developer. And I certainly would never have sex with that smeghead Rimmer, let alone have 'feelings' for him!_ Lister shrugged internally. He must have been either drunk, hallucinating, or overtired when he wrote this twaddle. He tore out the page, wadded it up into a ball, and threw it into the waste disposal unit before setting out in search of breakfast.


End file.
